Top Exercises for Vagus Nerve Health: DIY Edition

1. Deep Breathing Exercises

Just like we need to flip off the car’s cruise control when we approach heavy traffic on the highway, sometimes we need to grab the wheel regulating our breathing from the autonomic nervous system. Slow, deep breathing, known as diaphragmatic breathing — because the diaphragm contracts and relaxes with each inhale and exhale — has shown the ability to tone our vagus nerve and usher us toward rest and recovery.^[1]

The goal here is to extend air intake beyond the chest into the belly area. One way to ensure you’re performing the exercise correctly is to place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly, making sure that the hand on the belly rises higher. Lie down, sit, or stand when performing the exercise — whichever makes you feel the most relaxed.^[2]

2. Meditation

Meditation isn’t just a quick fix for when we struggle to stimulate our vagus nerve. It’s much more, in fact, and over time has proven to produce a cumulative effect that makes it easier for us to reach a state of calm and relaxation. One meditation technique used to promote healthy vagus nerve function is breath visualization. With this exercise, you simply visualize the passage of your breath through your body, from the top of your head all the way down through your legs. Try it. Repeat the breathing and visualization cycle as needed.^[3]

3. Yoga

Many of the top exercises for vagus nerve health feature techniques that cross over from one to another. For example, meditation often involves deep breathing. And the difference between singing and gargling may be in the ear of the beholder. Yoga exercises designed to tone up your vagus nerve can also involve very intentional breathing practices.^[4]

We’re going to select an exercise that’s focused on the neck. Remember, the vagus nerve travels from your brain to the gut — and the traffic (and muscles) can be tightest in your neck. Just follow these three simple steps:

1. This exercise involves bringing your right ear toward your right shoulder. But there’s a big catch: you need to do so without turning your head.
2. Then, follow with your eyes. Next, take a half dozen breaths, doing your best to take the air into the left side of your neck.
3. Finally, bring your head and eyes back forward, and repeat with the other side. Performed correctly, and you should experience relaxation throughout your neck, , which engages the vagus nerve.

4. Tai Chi

Slow, deep breathing. Mind-body movements. Meditation. Producing sounds that cause your vocal cords to vibrate. These are all techniques for promoting a healthy vagal tone. And they’re all features of Tai Chi, the ancient Chinese martial art known as “meditation in motion.” ^[5]

The low-impact exercise is designed to balance and harmonize the body’s energy — very similar to the vagus nerve’s function. To get started, look for beginner videos on YouTube or find a local instructor.

5. Singing or Humming

Fire up the karaoke machine and get ready to rock. Whether you’re projecting your best deep-belly rock scream or whispering a ballad to someone special, you’re cranking up your vagal tone (that’s a good thing). This works because the vagus nerve innervates the larynx. The more deep breathing and vocal cord vibrations, the better. ^[6]

If you’re shy behind the mic, don’t worry. Instead, try laying on your back or sitting, drawing deep breaths, and making a humming sound. Or, a well-planned solo road trip with a compelling playlist might do the trick.

6. Cold Exposure

You don’t need to perform a polar plunge — splashing into an almost frozen body of water with a group of revelers — to activate your vagus nerve. Taking a cold shower, sipping ice water, or even applying a cold compress to your neck can do the trick (although they may not generate the same social media pop). The cold exposure works by shifting your parasympathetic nervous system, where the vagus nerve lives. ^[7]

7. Gargling

How about an exercise that can freshen your breath and activate your vagus nerve? Similar to singing and humming, gargling involves an area of the throat within close proximity to the vagus nerve. So when we swirl around minty mouthwash (or simply water) in the back of our throats, it stimulates the right nerve fibers. The louder and longer you gargle — somewhere around 30 seconds — the better this exercise can tone up your vagus nerve.^[8]

8. Massage

Massage can involve hot stones, trigger points, hypnosis, and even the other half of your couple. For our DIY purposes, we’ll focus on self-massage. For this exercise, you’ll want to find a comfortable sitting or lying position, and then locate your vagus nerve on the side of your neck and trace its path through the chest and abdomen by applying soft pressure. Use your fingertips or palms and focus on taking deep breaths. Repeat for several minutes, making adjustments as you feel necessary, in order to activate your vagus nerve.^[9]

9. Physical Exercise

General fitness activities, from using an elliptical to lap swimming and jogging, all have the ability to tone up and activate the vagus nerve. One thing to be careful about, however, is overly stressful or vigorous exercise without proper recovery, as it can have the ability to activate your fight or flight response without a clear and easy eject button. Interval training or endurance training is one approach that’s proven to be more vagus nerve-friendly.^[10]

10. Truvaga

At Truvaga, we’ve experimented with all the top exercises for vagus nerve health. And we wouldn’t have included them in this article unless we had some measure of success with each. But each has its shortcomings, too. So, we set out to design a solution that was quick, easy, small, portable, and highly effective. That’s how we came to create Truvaga, our handheld vagus nerve stimulators designed to reduce stress, improve sleep, boost clarity, and restore calm.